Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Shadowklan comes to Conflict!

So I’ve made the cut to get in to Conflict GT to play 40k! Even better, two of my Ordo-mates will be playing 40k too! Sean will be taking the spot of someone that’s already paid but has to drop out, and Eric was already in.

I’d considered using the Daemons, but was told I’d not be able to use the Square bases…hence my rant last night. I think the Daemon list is far less powerful than the Ork, but frankly I don’t want to bend over a table moving all those damn Orks for two whole days! My back will be killing me!

But I respect his ruling, and certainly have no intention of re-basing the Daemons, so Shadowklan gets to come out of their box again!

Slight modification to the list I’d originally intended to use, though…basically dropped a few Boyz for a few more Lootas, and split the Lootas up in to two small squads. I think this still provides enough firepower to be a threat, allows firing at different targets if the first squad can get it done, and if my opponent wants to deal with them he needs to divert firepower on to those little squads worth less than a hundred points while the big mobs and Nob bikers are on top of him.

The Warboss will run with the Bikers, which I’ve found to be handy for the higher Ld to avoid running away, he also provides a redundant bosspole…just in case. The Nobs are pretty well striped for wound allocation: Painboy; Powerklaw with Waaagh! Banner; Powerklaw; Big Choppa; Choppa/Slugga with Bosspole; and two vanilla Choppa/Slugga. The Warboss is also very handy for allocating S8 or 9 wounds to, as his base T5 prevent Instant-Death.

My basic gameplan will be the same as I’ve used before: the Deffkoptas scout-move to be in position to assault enemy armour ASAP, with priority being to the big tanks with guns that insta-kill Nobs. If I go first, this can be the game winner, but even going second the enemy is sure to see the threat and feel compelled to deal with them…hopefully this will divert firepower away from the rest of the boyz! With T5 and 3+ cover, it will hopefully take more than a little firepower to get them, though they are a nice target for all the melta that folks seem to have lieing around with nothing else to shoot at when facing Shadowklan. The Nob-bikers I typically deploy centrally, so I can threaten nearly anything on turn 2 after a turbo-boost move. The Lootas will target soft armour or monstrous creatures. The Kommandos have been decisive in almost every battle I’ve used them in. Getting them exactly where I want them lets them show up and force the enemy to respond, as I can make them the biggest threat possible by choosing where they show up. There are enough of them that they can be a threat to vehicles (particularly with Snikrot), to MEQ units, and certainly to ‘softer’ troops (I’m looking at you, Guardsmen!). And the Boyz, of course, are Boyz….it takes so much to kill them (when properly spread-out, as I’ve discussed before) and they can dish out so much damage! I’d prefer to have three mobz of Shootaz, but the Choppas aren’t bad either, and it’s kind of nice to have a unit that can just run without thinking about shooting!

Hopefully I can maintain the same game rhythm I’d been able to establish in other games using the Nob-bikers: the enemy is so busy dealing with koptas, Nobz, and Kommandos for the first 3 turns that the Boyz are able to achieve whatever I need them to do: capturing objectives or finishing off whatever’s left!

Bit of a question-mark for me, though: I could drop the Lootas and one of the Nob-bikers and add a fourth large Choppa mob. Having that fourth Troop choice and the massive resiliency (in addition to fewer kill points) sounds attractive, at the expense of reduced to virtually zero ranged-firepower. Any thoughts?